So now, I'm ready to plan, but I need one more piece of info. A quick call to Daddy confirms that there would be music before the Big Event: two pan flutes and a sitar. That's all I need to know.

With 15 minutes of music first, I could light my audience separately by placing my lights as shown in Figure 3. This would provide back-cross lighting, as if shafts of light were streaming down from behind and beside the spectators. The camera could pick up tight shots of the audience for intercutting into the footage of the actual ceremony.

Then, a few minutes before the main event, I would move all my lights to the positions in Figure 4. The spill from the two lights on the bride and groom would pick up the couple's families for obligatory weepy close-ups.

Okay, so the next day I hit J's RVs on 101 for batteries and inverters and steer my rental van back to the park. I suddenly realize that a big battery weighs about 30 pounds in the parking lot and 90 pounds in the grove a half-mile away. By the time I've got all four in place, plus the inverters, plus the light kit, my legs feel like warm spaghetti.

But it works! With the lights behind and beside the spectator area, I pick up a full f-stop of hard, directional light. When I pull the daylight filers I pick up another 2/3 stop and get a golden light that looks great in the cool glade. When I test the setup for the actual wedding, the results are just as sensational.

Just when I'm feeling smug about being such a smart guy, I realize I have to schlep all this stuff back to the van.

Okay, so it's three days later and the producer and crew are here, so I have lots of help getting my rig back to the grove. The wedding's at three and we're set by one o'clock. Perfect.

Then the producer says, "It's dark in here." He only just noticed? "That's why I put this rig together."

"No, I mean darker than when we started."

I can't see the sky, so I pull my trusty meter and sure enough, we've lost a stop. Probably some clouds crossing the sun. Then I hear plop, plop PLOP! Humongous water drops that collect in the canopy before they bomb us, 200 feet below. Before we know it, we've got a rain shower, then a storm and then a whole monsoon. The soft forest floor is now muck.

Now Daddy shows up, wearing a newspaper over his head and yells, " It'll do this all day. We're moving to the lodge." And there I am in the middle of nowhere standing in a downpour, with four soaking lights, inverters, batteries, and a half-mile trudge to a location I haven't even scouted for a wedding in two hours.

(To be continued...)

Contributing Editor Jim Stinson is the author of the book Video Communication and Production.